


How does a heart heal?

by Gwenjamin



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Past Character Death, Sokka (Avatar) Needs a Hug, wikihow to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:21:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26593603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwenjamin/pseuds/Gwenjamin
Summary: It's the anniversary of Yue's death.Sokka doesn't know how to feel.
Relationships: Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Sokka/Yue (Avatar)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	How does a heart heal?

It's funny, he thought, how when someone's gone it all just feels empty. A void, without feelings. You feel cold, every little thing reminds you of them.  
  
And then you forget. You shove those feelings in the back of your mind just to escape that feeling–the empty space inside your heart that you don't ever fill again.  
  
At least, that's how Sokka felt. People said it was unhealthy, and maybe that was true, but it was better than having to feel, having to remember the smile and the laughter and the voice you loved so much that you know you'll never feel so long.  
  
It's funny, how such a short time can feel so long, and yet end in an instant, leaving you wishing that you had just a little more time, wishing that none of this had ever happened because what did they do to deserve it? What did they do to deserve the cruel hands of fate cutting their string so soon?  
  
He sat, in the corner of his room. Taking up as little space as possible, trying to fade into the wall. He hated this day. It was the only day that he allowed himself to remember her, the only day he let the tears flow freely instead of keeping them all to himself.  
  
Everyone always told him it was okay to be sad but the problem was never him being sad, it was that he wasn't sad, that he didn't know how to feel anything other than the cold empty void, tears spilling from his eyes, but none of the feeling that came with it.  
  
What was wrong with him? He asked himself, for the first week, first month. Itt hurt but not in the way everyone else described it, it was a dull aching pain that was there always even though he never paid attention to it.  
  
It had been five years but it felt like a lifetime ago, it felt like a million years since he had last seen her smile and yet it also felt like just yesterday that she had let out her last breath.  
  
"Sokka?" His door creaked open, revealing his sister. She looked like she had been crying, and that somehow made it all worse. It made it all real, outside his head.  
  
He let her kneel down next to him, wrapping him in a hug, like she was his older sister instead of the other way around and suddenly he was reminded of the other person he tried so hard to forget.  
  
She helped him up and they walked outside, staring into the sky, littered with stars. And, for the first time in a year, Sokka allowed himself to remember.  
  
He remembered her, the way her skin always seemed to glow in the light of the moon. He remembered her silky black hair, and he remembered dying it white like the snow, white like the moon. He remembered her laughter echoing through the world, cutting through all the sorrow and the pain.   
  
And the he remembered the moment she left, the moment the light drained from her eyes, the dark brown eyes that had once held entire constellations in it becoming dull. He remembered all the light leaving the world, and then, only then, he let himself say her name.  
  
"I love you, Yue." He said to the stars. They seemed to glitter brighter in response, like she really was up there watching him.   
  
Katara squeezed his hand, and let him cry, the tears flowing freely, a years worth of bottled up emotions escaping from his eyes, pouring down in streams down his shirt, down his arms, glittering in the moonlight.

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this in the middle of the night and made myself cry oops


End file.
